3
7 Comments

[Discussion] Are there Indie Hacking Ideas for Developing Countries?

I see many many business ideas being explored here and many are profitable for Indie hackers. And I'm from a developing country in Africa. Can these ideas be applied in Africa? Most of these niche business ideas are suitable for developed countries and I may be wrong but the way I see it, the problems to be solved by businesses in developing countries are better to a fast growth startup.
So my question is what types of business ideas are applicable to third-world countries for indie hackers?

  1. 2

    Indiehacking is for anyone that does it themselves using their own money and resources, which is called bootstrapping.

    We just rally around the term because it sounds cool & there's some truth to it. You're independent, and you're 'hacking' though not by the normal definition. You're just always searching for opportunities to provide value for people.

    Indiehacker businesses can be digital or otherwise. The Internet has just leveled the playing field. Anyone that owns their own product, especially online, must be familiar with UX. Start from a problem to find a solurion.

    As the other poster said, look for immediate needs in your area. See what sort of services are necessary. What can people benefit from?

    I am working with a small start up in India (I'm from US) and I'd consider us Indiehackers. We are bootstrapping a company and an initial product that will empower tapris, which are roadside merchants with modern inventory management and accounting tools. The product will have an image recognition software similar to Google Lens that through machine learning will help with inventory management, and B2C shopping.

    That's just an example.

    1. 1

      Thank you for the reply! I understand what it means to be an indie hacker/bootsrtaper. I'm actively on the lookout on immediate needs in my community, however the problems I observe are those that won't be solved by individuals like me.
      We have similar merchants here in Ethiopia to what you call tapris in india. What was the process you followed to land on that idea? What problem are you solving? Do these people have inventory management need? Or are you linking them with some distributer nearby?

      1. 1

        A friend of mine who lives in India conceived it based on his experience shopping at tapris, especially how they've been affected by COVID.

        He spoke to 300+ tapri owners and close to 100 regular customers and began to understand their issues. He helped a few get their accounting in order. But, he realized how important having a digital presence could help them. So we're making an app that offers inventory management and accounting on the B2B side and a hyper-local marketplace on the B2C side. We are making relationships with local distributors, and hope to help them diversify their inventory as well to include more essential items .

        If you can find an idea that makes others quality of life better, it's worth pursuing. Niche is still very good, though. These niche ideas usually are connected to other systems, and you can begin to branch out from there, or continue to specialize. Depends on what you want to accomplish.

        A friend of my from Nigeria has created a few online businesses, and his newest I believe will be very impactful. It's a peer to peer tutoring platform where you can sell 1-1 lessons in cooking. They will add other categories as it grows. That's great for the local creator economy.

  2. 1

    Local needs are vastly different than ideas discussed in Indiehackers community.

    Just to give anecdote, In developed countries, we assume that internet connection is available 24/7. In developing countries like India power outages are common and internet connection is unreliable. Providing a way to upload data offline has great value.

    Keep us posted on what you discovered - it would be interesting!

    1. 1

      We have similar problems here in Ethiopia and will probably be worse. Connection stability issue, power outages, expensive mobile data and few people even have internet access approximately 20% of the country.
      When I see many indiehackers explaining their journey, I always wonder the difference between the markets. Will keep you posted on my discouvery.

  3. 1

    I think you have to think about what are the needs of the people in your region. Is it business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C)? If you see something that can be made more efficient, easier, more cost effective, then these are opportunities for a successful startup.
    You can also take a model of product sales you see here and adapt it for your market.
    I hope this helps. All the best.

    1. 1

      It really helps, many thanks!

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 47 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 27 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments How I Launched FrontendEase 13 comments